When prospective clients “walk up to your business”, what do they find?  This under-2-minute video shows you why it’s important not only to know, but to have the *right* answer.  Enjoy!

Oh, and see if you can pick up where my little Llasa Apso Buddy decides to start tossing my slipper around.

This is a different topic for me to write about. But then these are different times. It probably needs its own blog but given this needs to be read now and I am not ready to start yet another blog, I have created a new category of posts called Heal Your Planet.

To me, healing the planet is a part of the Sentelligent Solution. It is about listening to what is happening on the planet and what is needed and responding sentelligently. Sometimes it can be hard to make sense of what is happening in our world. In those times, we might call on a higher source to help us understand. That is what happened below.

This post came about because I was not feeling inspired to write an article on any particular subject. I checked in with my guides to ask if they would help and was surprised at the response. This is the information I received from them:

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I’m one of those folks that has resisted participating in the Social Media arena for some time now, but decided to get some training so I could learn exactly what to do and not make so many mistakes and faux pas that so many newbies seem to make. I’m really glad I did that. It has been money well-spent.

Of course, just about the time we got started in the course, we moved to this remote location with little to no internet and email access. So it has made it a bit hard to get very many updates and tweets out there.

Here’s something I learned that you may not know about but if you’re serious about social media you’ll want to know. Many Twitter powerusers use TweetDeck (or some other tool) to manage their tweets and to see what everyone else is tweeting about, and that’s great, but at least once a week or so, you should go to your Twitter account page and send some updates and messages from there. Seems that if Twitter detects that your account is going unused after a period of time, they can shut you down or make your account inactive and give your account name to someone else.

Active commenting is one of the first signs that a blog has some real life—with it comes more readers, so put in the work it takes to grow this important tool.

Small business owners can easily take advantage of this tool now that so many people know what it is and know how to interact, but…you can do a few things to stimulate this interaction and draw more conversation.

1) Ask for comments. Sometimes just creating a post and inviting your readers to add comments can be just what you need to get them flowing. Commenting is a habit that you need to help build in your readership.

2) Ask questions and seek opinions. From time to time, ask your readers what they think of something or what they have done that works or how they have addressed a particularly challenging situation. You don’t need to have all the answers.

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Not all blogs are created equally… especially when they aren’t blogs at all. There’s a trend in internet marketing to imitate a blog- complete with a first person story and a string of comments- to sell products.

I’ve seen this for skincare and weightloss and I’m sure a number of other categories are out there.

So here’s how it goes… somehow you find yourself on a website and you click a link that says something you’re particularly interested in, usually around sex, money, diet, health. “I lost 25 pounds in 2 weeks!” or “I was broke and now I’m a gazillionaire!”

And it looks copacetic with an engaging and amazing story.

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Finding time to explore life’s mysteries is something that always enriches us in powerful and unexpected ways. It is also, often, the first thing that we set aside when life gets busy.  (And when is life NOT busy?!)

Among the fundamental mysteries of life, our own hearts and minds can frequently present us with some of the biggest puzzles. Do you find that to be true?

• Are there things that you shy away from without understanding why?

• Have you reacted strongly to something and then thought, “Hmmmm, I wonder where that came from?”

• Would you like to tune in more deeply to the stories that you tell yourself?

• Would you like to change some of those stories?  The ones that keep you from being your fullest and freest self … and stepping toward your cherished dreams?

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Obviously, you want your target market to have plenty of opportunities to find your Twitter account and follow you.
Here are a few ways to promote your Twitter profile:

Your Email Signature. It’s becoming common practice to include your Twitter handle in your email signature. You probably already place your blog or website URL in your email signature, so why not add your Twitter handle as well?

Your Website. Obviously, you want to have a Twitter icon on your website so that people who visit your website have a chance to follow you on Twitter.

Your Blog. Your blog is a great place to promote your Twitter account because you are already reaching an online audience. You should take a two-step approach.  First, place a Twitter icon in your blog’s sidebar and second, promote your Twitter handle in your posts every so often.

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It’s summer. . .a time of school vacations; hazy, hot and humid weather; and, according to some, the slowest business season of the year.

Not so here in Lakeville!  We’re going gangbusters and there’s a few reasons why which you can easily use/adapt for your business:

1. Plan for success and work the plan. Nothing secret here – it actually makes things easier if you have a plan to work by as there’s no wondering “What should I focus on?” thoughts when you walk in the office each morning.
2. Generate exposure all year round for a steady flow of business: consistent article marketing; regularly (at least 2x/week) posting on your, and others’, blogs; connecting with people “live” through social media; “touching” your readers through direct mail and, if conducive to your business, regularly hosting f.r.e.e. teleclasses.
3. Create systems to work for you. The busier you get, the more important it is to have the right systems in place so “no balls get dropped” and every client experiences Extreme Client Care™ from you and every member of your team.  And the busier you are, the more clients who want to work with you.

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Are you on Twitter? If so, hopefully you’ve discovered the power of hashtags (basically a pound sign # and some letters). Or maybe you’ve
seen hashtags and wondered what the heck they were.

Well, basically they are a way for you to track what others are saying about you, your event, your product or whatever you’ve created
a hashtag for. The most common use is to let you track when someone  tweets about your upcoming event. You just create a hashtag (keep it
short since tweets are limited in size) then let people know to use  it when they tweet about your event. And be sure to use it in your
own tweets so it gets attached to retweets.

Then you can track usage on Twitter or using a service like  SocialOomph and see who’s talking about you.

When you write a press release, it’s important that it becomes a powerful marketing tool for you and your small business. You certainly don’t want to invest your time writing and distributing your release, only to discover that it didn’t bring you any traffic, leads or sales.
To ensure that your press release writing efforts are not in vain, here are ten tips for writing powerful press releases that work:

1) Provide Newsworthy Content. Make sure that your press release is timely and relevant to your readers. You can accomplish this by tying your story to current events, recent headlines or social trends.

2) Write Like a Reporter. When writing your release, use third-person (he, she, etc.) and a reporter-like format. Take a look at today’s newspaper to reacquaint yourself with the way that journalists write articles.

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